Walking Dead Star Is Real-Life Hero

Laurie Holden participates in sting to help rescue 55 sex slaves
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 20, 2014 9:51 AM CDT

Actress Laurie Holden, who played Andrea for three seasons on AMC's The Walking Dead, recently got the chance to be a hero in real life. As Us Weekly notes, Holden was featured in an ABC News segment last week about Operation Underground Railroad, a volunteer-based group that recently rescued 55 sex slaves in Cartagena, Colombia, in a sting. Holden went along on the covert operation and kept the girls busy while undercover cops caught the sex traffickers.

"When they first showed up, some of them looked really terrified," an emotional Holden recalled. "I talked to a few of them and asked them how old they were. Some were 12. Some were 13. Most were 14. One of the girls came in, embraced me, started to cry, then I started to cry." Operation Underground Railroad was founded by Tim Ballard, a former CIA agent and Homeland Security investigator. The mission will be featured in a documentary titled The Abolitionists. (More sex trafficking stories.)

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